The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar–Episode 7 Review: Family Feud

We’ve officially moved beyond our fan service spa episode and gotten right back into the action in Ragnarok, which I think is a great thing–especially considering how this episode turned out.

Episode 7 laid a lot out in terms of the present, but also the past for our main character Yuuto, and I think it did a fairly decent job. We start with a flashback, and considering the current state of affairs for Yuuto and the Wolf clan it’s actually pretty obvious from the get-go, but it’s also informative.

Yuuto is with a blond male watching over Felicia and Sigrune as they swim, then we switch to another scene.

There’s an older man–who happens to be the Wolf Clan’s patriarch! We’re shown Yuuto being chosen as the new patriarch, which pisses off the blond guy–Loptr’s his name–and Loptr tries to kill Yuuto!

Well, the patriarch (or former patriarch now) saves Yuuto by becoming a shield, and Loptr runs away. So, what we got was how Yuuto became patriarch of the Wolf Clan, which was full of bloodshed. That’s amazing…

Either way, that’s how our episode started, and if doing that was an indication of how things would turn out in this episode I must not have been paying attention. Episode 7 of Ragnarok was violent–but that’s to be expected now, I think–and the violence was actually well done.

After the dream/flashback opening we’re told by the Ninja Loli Twins that a nomadic clan called the Panther Clan conquered some Hoof Land using a mounted army. So, they’re like the Mongols? But wait…mounted army means they have stirrups, which means they’ve stolen technology from Yuuto!

Turns out the Panther Clan’s patriarch is none other than Yuuto and Felicia’s brother Loptr! Felicia knew but didn’t say anything. Great…nice job there, Felicia, now you’re all going to die. How do you feel with that on your conscience? Do you feel good? No? Didn’t think so…

Well, after this we get Yuuto calling his sister, which I’ve sort of started to simply expect and accept with this show, as well as his using his phone to research things. It’s just part of Yuuto’s character so no matter how much I don’t enjoy the parts where Yuuto does something that seems like he’s a god from another world–which is partially true?–I can’t change it. Just…I don’t get how the phone charges and that still bothers me.

Hey I can sort of read that….but not really…

Anyway, we get a battle!!! The Panther Clan attacks the Horn, and since the Wolf has sworn to defend the Horn because of that Oath of the Chalice thing we get to see a battle! Woohoo!! The parts of this show that work well are the fight sequences, and it’s always fun to see this show dive into them regardless of what’s happening politically, economically, etc in the rest of the world they’re in.

What I thought was really cool here was the continued use of the crossbows. Against cavalry, going head-to-head is always a bad thing, and Yuuto knows that he’s not going to be able to survive if he doesn’t play defensively and keep his people alive. So what does he do? He shoots volleys of crossbow bolts, but eventually is surrounded…

I honestly thought that this was going to be some end for at least one of our main characters, because I didn’t see a way out of this situation. We have the Panther Clan and its thousands-strong army surrounding a Wolf Clan that’s got crossbows and supply wagons…

Or….or so I thought. I think Yuuto knew he’d have a tough time with this battle, and considering he knew they were nomadic people that relied on a mounted army, Yuuto used that to his advantage and created these IRON FREAKING WALLS OF AWESOMENESS giving his troops the ability to fire their crossbows from superior protection.

There were no huge supply caravans, only massive walls of iron/steel/metal (I’m not sure what he’s used to be honest) to defend his and his peoples’ lives.

Honestly wouldn’t want to charge that on a horse…

The next portions are sort of different, but I think they’re important. However, they’re also a bit odd, and I don’t really know if the show took a few liberties here in deciding what kind of abilities the Einherjar would have, but one of them was just messed up.

Loptr, the brother guy, has this other lady who is a bit freaky. I don’t like her. She looks like one of those mystic girls that you’d find in a video game that is the opposite of your own mystic girl–like opposite hair and skin color, opposite eye color, etc–but really you find that one to be more aesthetically pleasing so you’re annoyed at the current game. Yeah….

Anyway, she uses her ability and messes with Yuuto, but also reincarnates the fallen soldiers? It’s sort of cool, but also one of those WTF? moments because now there are zombies…

Evil mystic video game lady….kinda hot, kinda not

After this sneak attack thing with magic the Panther Clan gets into Yuuto’s face and Loptr attacks Felicia. Well, Yuuto defends her, and then Sigrune comes on a FUCKING CAMEL!! The episode ends when the Panther army begins to flee…

Okay, Crunchyroll figure out how to spell her name, please…

Sidebar: Sig’s name has changed its spelling in the subtitles two or three times now, and I don’t know how it’s actually spelled. Like, Crunchyroll, can you figure your shit out? Thanks.

Back to the show:

Okay, what? Hmm… Yuuto and Felicia were in trouble. That brother dude Loptr, who’s really just a giant dick of a person holding some grudge for years was going to fight his sister? Yuuto saved Felicia and then they had a small talk. After the small talk Sig showed up on a camel…because horses hate camels and Yuuto knew they’d run away.

You know, as much as I love this show’s battle sequences and how they go about the technological advances, the whole smartphone this is so bothersome. If you were to take that away from Yuuto he would have died a long time ago. The Wolf Clan wouldn’t be where they are today, and if he didn’t have it to prepare for the fight against the Panther Clan, he wouldn’t have known horses don’t like camels (I don’t know if that’s true, time to Google it!)

The battles are solid, the technology and advances that Yuuto is making for his clan and the Horn clan are great, we’re getting solid story lines out of that stuff, but as soon as Yuuto is out of his element he’s saved by his phone and the infinite knowledge it possesses.

Also, is his sister going to be transported to Yggdrassil or is he going to go home any time soon? They’re dangling that carrot very poorly and really it’s just taking away from the portion of the story our episode is focusing on. Either figure it out or drop it, Ragnarok.

While I do enjoy this show and I’ll continue watching, there are some issues I have with it because it feels like they’ve left things unsolved/dangling and I’m not really sure what think about said items. Do we care? Are we supposed to simply let them happen as they happen? Or….what?

Either way, that’s it for Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar episode 7! Hopefully you enjoyed this!

I think we needed a bit more foreshadowing about this brother who has a grudge against Yuuto because it all feels very rushed introducing him in a flash back and suddenly he’s the villain we’re supposed to be worried about. I’m not fond of the pacing of this show at all.

I’m not to a certain extent, either. I thought some of the other character introductions like the twins and the guy I call Red Lightning (what happened to him, by the way) were paced well enough, but this episode seems very rushed especially coming after the fan-service-heavy episode 6. It’s almost like they tried to make up for episode six by throwing us into another crisis without much of a grasp on the stakes it was raising.

Hopefully they can correct the mistake in episode 8, but for some reason I doubt they will.

I’m pretty much writing this one off as watchable but not that good at this point. It could have been better, but it just has missed the mark on too many occasions. I’ll still finish it and I’m still interested enough in what it is going to do, but the execution has been lacking.